Collection: Shop Black

New York Times Bestseller

The stirring memoir of Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police Officer on duty January 6th, who has become one of the most prominent and essential voices regarding the truth of that day, and "a must-read for those care about our nation's future" (Congressman Eric Swalwell).

Walking the halls of democracy as a Capitol Police officer, Harry Dunn was a man slowly experiencing an awakening. It sparked after the election of our first Black president. It grew as his belief in the bravery and honor of law enforcement was shaken by Ferguson and countless other cases of police brutality towards the Black community. It continued to burn brighter as he watched members of Congress, many of whom he had befriended, lose their way to partisanship, as political extremism intensified. And it exploded into a blaze when he fought side by side with his fellow officers on January 6th, when democracy and their lives were threatened.

Standing My Ground is "a powerful, patriotic tale - told with striking moral clarity" (Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi) that provides a crucial, definitive firsthand account of what happened on that day our country was shocked to its core. But it will also share the story of a man who refused to stay quiet when he learned that some of the men and women he had risked his life protecting, who knew him by name, would deny the horrors they faced. That's when he chose to speak up and to seek out what his hero John Lewis once termed "good trouble." Dunn's ongoing story as a witness willing to meaningfully engage with the media, lawmakers, and the public provides a backdrop for examining the political and racial divide in this country--one that we must overcome in order to demand accountability and preserve our precious democracy.

From Ross Gay, the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights, comes an intimate and electrifying collection of essays about the joy that comes from connection. "BRILLIANT." --Ada Limón, U.S. poet laureate

In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life's inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it.

In "We Kin," Gay thinks about the garden (es­pecially around August, when the zucchini and tomatoes come in) as a laboratory of mutual aid; in "Share Your Bucket," he explores skateboard­ing's reclamation of public spaces; he considers the costs of masculinity in "Grief Suite"; and in "Through My Tears I Saw," he recognizes what was healed in caring for his father as he was dying.

In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love?

Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity. In fact, it just might help us survive.

"A gift that's meant to be shared . . . [This book] inspires us to look beyond the miseries of our era to envision a more welcoming future."―The Washington Post

In this New York Times bestselling classic, Caldecott Medal-winning artist Kadir Nelson tells the incredible story of baseball's unsung heroes -- perfect for celebrating the centennial anniversary of the Negro Leagues!

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award and Robert F. Siebert Award

Featuring nearly fifty iconic oil paintings and a dramatic double-page fold-out, an award-winning narrative, a gorgeous design and rich backmatter, We Are the Ship is a sumptuous, oversize volume for all ages that no baseball fan should be without. Using an inviting first-person voice, Kadir Nelson shares the engaging story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its evolution, until after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947.

The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners, of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship, of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is a perfect mirror for the social and political history of black America in the first half of the twentieth century. But most of all, the story of the Negro Leagues is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation, hatred, terrible conditions, and low pay to do one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.

Clint Smith's debut poetry collection, Counting Descent, is a coming of age story that seeks to complicate our conception of lineage and tradition.

Smith explores the cognitive dissonance that results from belonging to a community that unapologetically celebrates black humanity while living in a world that often renders blackness a caricature of fear. His poems move fluidly across personal and political histories, all the while reflecting on the social construction of our lived experiences. Smith brings the reader on a powerful journey forcing us to reflect on all that we learn growing up, and all that we seek to unlearn moving forward.

Accolades

Winner, 2017 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award

Finalist, 2017 NAACP Image Awards

2017 'One Book One New Orleans' Book Selection

A seminal work that expands how we talk about the natural world and the environment as National Book Critics Circle Criticism finalist Camille T. Dungy diversifies her garden to reflect her heritage.

In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy recounts the seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominately white community of Fort Collins, Colorado. When she moved there in 2013, with her husband and daughter, the community held strict restrictions about what residents could and could not plant in their gardens.

In resistance to the homogenous policies that limited the possibility and wonder that grows from the earth, Dungy employs the various plants, herbs, vegetables, and flowers she grows in her garden as metaphor and treatise for how homogeneity threatens the future of our planet, and why cultivating diverse and intersectional language in our national discourse about the environment is the best means of protecting it.

Definitive and singular, Soil functions at the nexus of nature writing, environmental justice, and prose to encourage you to recognize the relationship between the peoples of the African diaspora and the land on which they live, and to understand that wherever soil rests beneath their feet is home.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From parents and actors Jazmyn Simon and Dulé Hill comes a picture book filled with beautiful, inspiring affirmations reminding kiddos of their infinite wonder. Perfect for children of any age!

I am worthy. I am loved. I am enough.
Every child, no matter their age, needs to know how loved they are and, more importantly, should love themselves. In this gorgeously illustrated book of affirmations, young readers are told how cherished, deserving, and gifted they are.

In their tender picture book, actors Jazmyn Simon and Dulé Hill tell children about the magic of self-love and standing firm, regardless of outside voices and doubt. Children will feel their confidence grow as they repeat the encouraging words on the page, take in the warm illustrations, and learn to believe in themselves!

From Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award winner Renée Watson comes the first book in a young middle grade series about Ryan Hart, a girl who is pure spirit, kindness, and sunshine.

Ryan Hart has a lot on her mind--school, self-image, and especially family. Her dad finally has a new job, but money is tight. That means some changes, like selling their second car and moving into a new (old) house. But Ryan is a girl who knows how to make sunshine out of setbacks. As her brother says when he raps about her, she's got the talent that matters most: it's a talent that can't be seen, she's nice, not mean!

Ryan is all about trying to see the best in people, to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good friend. But even if her life isn't everything she would wish for, when her big brother is infuriating, her parents don't quite understand, and the unexpected happens, she always finds a way forward, with grace and wit. And plenty of sunshine.

Acclaimed author Renée Watson writes her own version of Ramona Quimby, one starring a Black girl and her family, in this start to a charming new series.

"This simple and sincere tale of working up courage to face fears makes quite a splash." -- Kirkus Reviews

Jabari is definitely ready to jump off the diving board. He's finished his swimming lessons and passed his swim test, and he's a great jumper, so he's not scared at all. "Looks easy," says Jabari, watching the other kids take their turns. But when his dad squeezes his hand, Jabari squeezes back. He needs to figure out what kind of special jump to do anyway, and he should probably do some stretches before climbing up onto the diving board. In a sweetly appealing tale of overcoming your fears, Gaia Cornwall captures a moment between a patient and encouraging father and a determined little boy you can't help but root for.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

B is for Beautiful, Brave, and Bright! And for a Book that takes a Bold journey through the alphabet of Black history and culture.

Letter by letter, The ABCs of Black History celebrates a story that spans continents and centuries, triumph and heartbreak, creativity and joy.

It's a story of big ideas--P is for Power, S is for Science and Soul. Of significant moments--G is for Great Migration. Of iconic figures--H is for Zora Neale Hurston, X is for Malcom X. It's an ABC book like no other, and a story of hope and love.

In addition to rhyming text, the book includes back matter with information on the events, places, and people mentioned in the poem, from Mae Jemison to W. E. B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer to Sam Cooke, and the Little Rock Nine to DJ Kool Herc.

Adapted for the Paramount+ miniseries Lawmen: Bass Reeves, directed by Taylor Sheridan and starring David Oyelowo

2022 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist for Western Fiction
2021 Phillip H. McMath Post Publication Book Award Finalist for Prose
2021 International Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society Book Award for Historical Fiction in Event/Era
2021 Oklahoma Book Award Finalist for Fiction from the Oklahoma Center for the Book
2021 Will Rogers Medallion Book Award Finalist for Western Fiction
2021 Spur Award Finalist for Historical Novel from the Western Writers of America
2021 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist for Historical Fiction (Pre 1900s)
2020 Arkansas Gem from the Arkansas Center for the Book
2021 Peacemaker Award Finalist for Best First Novel
2021 Indie Book Award Finalist for Historical Fiction

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an origin story in the true American tradition. Before Bass Reeves could stake his claim as the most successful nineteenth-century American lawman, arresting more outlaws than any other deputy during his thirty-two-year career as a deputy U.S. marshal in some of the most dangerous regions of the Wild West, he was a slave.

After a childhood picking cotton, Reeves became an expert marksman under his master's tutelage, winning shooting contests throughout the region. His skill had serious implications, however, as the Civil War broke out. Reeves was given to his master's mercurial, sadistic, Moby-Dick-quoting son in the hopes that Reeves would keep him safe in battle. The ensuing humiliation, love, heroics, war, mind games, and fear solidified Reeves's determination to gain his freedom and drew him one step further on his fated path to an illustrious career.

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an important historical work that places Reeves in the pantheon of American heroes and a thrilling historical novel that narrates a great man's exploits amid the near-mythic world of the nineteenth-century frontier.

A breathtaking poetry collection on hope, heart, and heritage from the most prominent and promising Black poets and writers of our time, edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander.

In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout. Featuring work from well-loved poets such as Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes, Morgan Parker, and Nikki Giovanni, This Is the Honey is a rich and abundant offering of language from the poets giving voice to generations of resilient joy, "each incantation," as Mahogany L. Browne puts it in her titular poem, is "a jubilee of a people dreaming wildly."

This essential collection, in the tradition of Dudley Randall's The Black Poets and E. Ethelbert Miller's In Search of Color Everywhere, contains poems exploring joy, love, origin, race, resistance, and praise. Jacqueline A.Trimble likens "Black woman joy" to indigo, tassels, foxes, and peacock plumes. Tyree Daye, Nate Marshall, and Elizabeth Acevedo reflect on the meaning of "home" through food, from Cuban rice and beans to fried chicken gizzards. Clint Smith and Cameron Awkward-Rich enfold us in their intimate musings on love and devotion. From a "jewel in the hand" (Patricia Spears Jones) to "butter melting in small pools" (Elizabeth Alexander), This Is the Honey drips with poignant and delightful imagery, music, and raised fists.

Fresh, memorable, and deeply moving, this definitive collection a must-have for any lover of language and a gift for our time.

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK!

Recommended by The New York Times - Vogue - People - NPR - Vulture - The Guardian - Cosmopolitan - Rolling Stone - Publishers Weekly - The Sunday Times - and many more!

In this sensational, page-turning debut novel, a high-profile female journalist's world is upended when her fiancé's name turns up in a viral social media post--a nuanced, daring, and timely exploration of the real-world impact of online life, from award-winning journalist and internationally bestselling author Yomi Adegoke.

"Brilliantly written, intricately plotted and incredibly clever. Once I started, I could not put it down, and I am sure I'll be thinking about this book for a very long time." -- Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice

Ola Olajide, a celebrated journalist at Womxxxn magazine, is set to marry the love of her life in one month's time. Young, beautiful, and successful--she and her fiancé Michael are considered the "couple goals" of their social network and seem to have it all. That is, until one morning when they both wake up to the same message: "Oh my god, have you seen The List?"

It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola would usually be the first to support such a list--she'd retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time, Michael's name is on it.

Compulsively readable, wildly entertaining, and filled with sharp social insight, The List is a piercing and dazzlingly clear-sighted debut about secrets, lies, and the internet. Perfect for fans of Such a Fun Age, Luster, and My Dark Vanessa, this is a searing portrait of these modern times and our morally complicated online culture.

"Topical, heartfelt, provocative and wise, Yomi Adegoke's characters are tenderly realized . . . the entire cast of this ultimate millennial novel springs vividly to life." -- Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

"The List asks 'what if?' and the answers will surely get people thinking. A vibrantly told exploration of the messy interface between virtual and offline relationships. A page-turning tale!" -- Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake

The instant New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon book club pick is "a heady combination of book love and between-the-sheets love." (Ruth Ware)

"Tia Williams's book is a smart, sexy testament to Black joy, to the well of strength from which women draw, and to tragic romances that mature into second chances. I absolutely loved it."
--JODI PICOULT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways and Small Great Things

Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget, and seven days to get it all back again...

Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning novelist, who, to everyone's surprise, shows up in New York.

When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their buried traumas, but the eyebrows of the Black literati. What no one knows is that fifteen years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. While they may be pretending not to know each other, they can't deny their chemistry--or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books through the years.

Over the next seven days, amidst a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect--but Eva's wary of the man who broke her heart, and wants him out of the city so her life can return to normal. Before Shane disappears though, she needs a few questions answered...

With its keen observations of creative life in America today, as well as the joys and complications of being a mother and a daughter, Seven Daysin June is a hilarious, romantic, and sexy-as-hell story of two writers discovering their second chance at love.

A Best Book of the Year: NPR - Kirkus - Marie Claire - PopSugar - New York Public Library - Bustle - Reader's Digest - Literary Hub
A Best Book of the Summer: Harper's Bazaar - Oprah Daily - Shondaland - The Los Angeles Times - CBS News - PureWow - Good Housekeeping - BuzzFeed - theSkimm
A Best Romance of 2021: The Washington Post - USA Today - Vulture - Goodreads - BookPage - BuzzFeed - Happy Mag

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - PULITZER PRIZE WINNER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. - The basis for the acclaimed original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins.

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood--where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.

In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.

As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage--and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Look for Colson Whitehead's new novel, Crook Manifesto, coming soon!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - "Simmons's evocative account of her remarkable trajectory from Jim Crow Texas, where she was the youngest of twelve children in a sharecropping family, to the presidencies of Smith College and Brown University shines with tenderness and dignity."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"A riveting work of literature, destined to take its place in the canon of great African American autobiographies."--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Bloomberg, BET

I was born at a crossroads: a crossroads in history, a crossroads in culture, and a geographical crossroad in North Houston County in East Texas.

Born in 1945, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth child of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water, no electricity, no books to read. Yet despite this--or, in her words, because of it--Simmons would become the first Black president of an Ivy League university. The former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M, Texas's oldest HBCU, Simmons has inspired generations of students as she herself made history.

In Up Home, Simmons takes us back to Grapeland to show how the people who love us when we are young shape who we become. We meet her caring, tireless mother who managed to feed her large family with an often empty pantry; her father, who refused to let racial and economic injustice crush his youngest daughter's dreams; the doting brothers and sisters; and the attentive teachers who welcomed Ruth into the classroom, guiding her to a future she could hardly imagine as a child.

From the farmland of East Texas to Houston's Fifth Ward to New Orleans at the dawn of the civil rights movement, Simmons depicts an era long gone but whose legacies of inequality we still live with today. Written in clear and timeless prose, Up Home is both an origin story set in the segregated South and the uplifting chronicle of a girl whose intellect, grace, and curiosity guide her as she creates a place for herself in the world.

New York Times bestseller!

Artemis Fowl meets Men in Black in this exhilarating debut middle grade fantasy, the first in a series filled with #blackgirlmagic. Perfect for fans of Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, the Percy Jackson series, and Nevermoor.

Amari Peters has never stopped believing her missing brother, Quinton, is alive. Not even when the police told her otherwise, or when she got in trouble for standing up to bullies who said he was gone for good.

So when she finds a ticking briefcase in his closet, containing a nomination for a summer tryout at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, she's certain the secretive organization holds the key to locating Quinton--if only she can wrap her head around the idea of magicians, fairies, aliens, and other supernatural creatures all being real.

Now she must compete for a spot against kids who've known about magic their whole lives. No matter how hard she tries, Amari can't seem to escape their intense doubt and scrutiny--especially once her supernaturally enhanced talent is deemed "illegal." With an evil magician threatening the supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she's an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn't stick it out and pass the tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.

Plus don't miss the thrilling sequel, Amari and the Great Game!